NetShort drives 400% growth with a full-funnel CTV user acquisition strategy

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE 

Expanding beyond mobile to reach higher-value users 

NetShort is a fast-growing video content platform built around high-frequency engagement and serialised, AI-driven storytelling. Often referred to as “microdramas,” these mobile-first series are designed around short, vertically filmed episodes and optimised for continuous social-style consumption. Users are served ads in exchange for access to the premium content. They may also pay to unlock additional episodes. Originating in China, the format has rapidly gained global popularity, helping platforms like NetShort climb entertainment app rankings and drive substantial advertising and subscription growth. 

As the company expanded internationally, its focus shifted to acquiring users with strong retention and monetisation potential. At the same time, rising acquisition costs across social and mobile channels made it increasingly difficult to scale efficiently, while a mobile-first media mix limited the brand’s ability to reach new audiences. 

NetShort wanted to diversify its acquisition strategy, expand reach, and improve user quality in the short-form drama category. Rather than maximizing app installs alone, the company sought to attract users with a higher likelihood of becoming long-term, paying customers. 

This created an opportunity to test whether connected TV (CTV) could function as both a brand-building and performance channel by connecting upper-funnel exposure with measurable lower-funnel outcomes. 

SOLUTION 

Building a phased CTV strategy powered by audience and content signals 

NetShort and its agency, MadHouse, launched a phased test-and-scale strategy on The Trade Desk platform. The program began with an always-on CTV campaign in the U.S. designed to establish reach, generate clear performance signals, and identify opportunities for optimisation. 

As the campaign matured, the team shifted from broad targeting to a more refined audience- and content-led approach. Campaigns were restructured around specific themes and viewer motivations. Along the way, Kokai helped to surface high-value audience segments and identify emerging performance opportunities. 

This strategy included: 

• Launching a core CTV campaign to establish scale and benchmark performance. 

• Structuring ad groups by audience, inventory source, and device type to isolate performance drivers. 

• Segmenting audiences by demographics and content-affinity signals, including female-skewing cohorts. 

• Building theme-based campaigns such as “Female Relationship” and “Fantasy Female Romance” to align media exposure with viewer interest. 

• Using Kokai’s AI-driven audience exploration and optimisation capabilities to refine targeting and improve performance over time. 

• Testing inventory sources and supply paths to identify efficient, scalable environments for growth.

Ongoing optimisations were driven by live performance data. Underperforming audience segments and inventory combinations were reduced, while stronger-performing opportunities received increased investment. Kokai also enabled more effective audience exploration by helping the team move beyond manual targeting assumptions and uncover new paths to growth. 

RESULTS 

Driving scalable growth with higher-value users 

The campaign showed how CTV, combined with AI-powered audience optimisation and cross-device measurement, can support performance-driven user acquisition at scale.

Across the campaign, NetShort achieved: 

• 400% growth in six months while maintaining a stable CPA. 

• Exceeded first-day return on ad spend (D0 ROAS) targets by more than 50%, demonstrating that newly acquired users were generating stronger monetisation outcomes within 24 hours of install, with peak performance reaching 3 – 4x target levels*. 

• An 87% improvement against CPI targets. 

Creative and content analysis also surfaced clear performance drivers. Localised creatives featuring English subtitles outperformed dubbed alternatives, with top-performing assets delivering a 59% higher ROI and nearly three times the install rate of benchmark creatives.
 
These results demonstrate that expanding beyond traditional mobile acquisition channels can unlock incremental audiences while maintaining efficiency and performance. More importantly, the campaign showed that scale and user quality do not need to come at the expense of one another.

For NetShort and MadHouse, success was measured not only by growth but by the ability to acquire users with stronger conversion and monetisation potential. By aligning audience strategy with content affinity, using Kokai to identify and reach high-value audiences, and connecting exposure to downstream outcomes through cross-device measurement, the campaign improved both acquisition efficiency and business results.

The effort also established a repeatable framework for global expansion, which enabled NetShort to scale into new markets while continuing to improve user experiences and performance outcomes. 

Discover how adding CTV to your media mix can help improve reach and performance. Contact us or reach out to your account manager at The Trade Desk today.

*D0 ROAS measures the revenue generated within a user’s first 24 hours after installing a mobile app relative to media investment. It is commonly used to assess how quickly newly acquired users begin generating value.